


these ghosts of mine

by wlwrwby



Category: RWBY
Genre: Character Study, Child Soldiers, Extended Metaphors, JanuRWBY, Weiss Schnee Needs a Hug, Weiss Schnee-centric, ish, no beta we die like redheads in rwby, others are mentioned - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-06
Updated: 2021-01-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 08:48:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28597206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wlwrwby/pseuds/wlwrwby
Summary: In Brunswick Farms, Weiss comes to a realization. Ghosts are real, and they’ve haunted her her entire life.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 43





	these ghosts of mine

**Author's Note:**

> once again, a loose interpretation of a JanuRWBY prompt. this one's for Day 6: Location!

The moment each of them stepped foot within the gated walls of Brunswick Farms, a chill washed over them that they couldn’t quite shake. The recent revelation didn’t do much to help calm their nerves, but it wasn’t like they had any other options. They needed shelter, and this place, however creepy it was, would suffice. 

Besides, they would only be staying the night. How much could go wrong? 

* * *

Weiss was tired. She had been for a long time, she realized. But now it was impossible to ignore. Ever since she had seen the corpses upstairs, the fatigue seemed to burrow in her bones and blanket her in exhaustion. 

This place seemed to bring out the worst of them. Moving, talking, just _existing_ was a great effort. So instead, Weiss sat in front of the fireplace in an effort to feel the warmth that she had suddenly lost. And as her teammates settled down for the night around her, she thought. 

She thought about her life and the hand she was dealt. She thought about how as soon as she’d found something worth truly living for, her team and JNPR and Beacon, it had been ripped apart from her and took some of her friends along with it. She thought about how she had been taken away from her true family just to be thrust back in her prison with no knowledge of her teammates’ status. How the moment she’d escaped and found the first glimmer of hope in months, she’d been kidnapped and held for ransom. 

The world was against Weiss Schnee. That, she knew, was a fact. 

* * *

Back at Beacon, Ruby and Yang had regaled Weiss and Blake with ghost stories and tales of the supernatural late into the night. It became a regular part of their weekly team bonding nights: Ruby and Yang telling a story each week that was more and more unbelievable than the last. 

“Ghosts aren’t real,” Weiss would always insist with vigor. After all, she had spent her entire life living in a giant, ancient mansion with no shortage of ancestors who had died within its walls. If anyone would’ve seen a ghost, it would’ve been her. 

But sometimes you can’t see the ghosts. Sometimes they live inside of you. 

_Ghosts are real,_ Weiss realizes months and lifetimes later within the gates of Brunswick Farms. _Ghosts are real, and they’ve haunted me since birth._

The ghosts hadn’t been those of her ancestors long gone, they hadn’t been wandering the halls and been the things going bump in the night. No, the ghosts were living. 

The ghosts that had haunted Weiss had been rooted in her mother’s spirits, her mother’s eyes when she no longer recognized her own daughter after a long night of drowning in a bottle. They were her father’s harsh words and even harsher actions both towards her and the world. 

But the worst ghosts of all were within Weiss herself. The constant worry that she was just like her family, unable to escape her name no matter what she did. The nagging fear that she would die for an unwinnable cause and only delay the inevitable. The thought that everything she had worked for was for nothing. 

The voices in her head haunted her. They were the ghosts that had made a home in her head. 

* * *

Weiss had never wanted to become a soldier. She had seen where it had gotten Winter and wanted absolutely no part in it. No, she decided at a young age. She wanted to become a Huntress. There was a sharp divide between the two. 

It’s part of the reason why she didn’t even bother applying to Atlas Academy, instead setting her sights on Beacon. Atlas Academy was different from the other schools. It was clear in their cold uniformity and the way they worked practically within the military. They may have been called Huntsmen and Huntresses, but it was clear what they really were. To go to Atlas Academy was to become a soldier. 

She had seen how Winter had left with the intention of becoming a Huntress, a dream she had held close to her heart ever since Weiss could remember. And she had seen how that dream had died because of the Atlas military. Because of General Ironwood and his peculiar interest in Winter. Weiss had decided long ago that she wanted nothing to do with it. 

Huntresses were supposed to keepers of the peace, slayers of Grimm. Not soldiers. 

...But all Weiss had ever been since she’d become a Huntress was a soldier. She just hadn’t been aware of it. She had tried to escape it by going to Beacon. The Gods had other plans, it seemed. 

Ozpin was their general, they were his pawns. Weiss was suddenly reminded of initiation, and how they each picked a chess piece. ‘Relics,’ he had called them. He must’ve found that funny. They had chosen their own role in his war in this sick game of the Gods. They weren’t Huntresses - they were child soldiers, pawns, human sacrifices. Yet another last-ditch effort at defeating the unbreakable. 

Weiss just wanted it to be over. One way or another. 

(What were they even doing here? What was the point?) 

(She was so tired. She always had been.)  
  
(She should sleep.) 

* * *

Even after they were far away from the farm, even when she was bundled in blankets on a couch in Saphron’s living room, Ruby curled up against her side, Weiss still felt cold. The revelations she’d had in that awful house had stuck with her. 

“Ghosts aren’t real,” she had said all that time ago in the safety of Beacon Academy, unaware of all the world’s horrors and the war and tragedy to come. So innocent it had been. So sure, so certain. 

So wrong. Oh, how she was wrong. 

Ghosts are real. Ghosts are real and they haunted every single one of them from the moment they had signed their life away to join a Huntsmen Academy, from the moment Ozpin set his eyes on them. For Weiss, they’d been there long before that. 

Ghosts can’t be killed, she had learned from Ruby and Yang’s stories. 

Ghosts can’t be killed, she learned time and time again in her own tale. Ghosts can’t be killed, she learned when she was still haunted long after the war had been won. 

No one told ghost stories anymore. They needn’t be told when they were already living one. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading. I hope you enjoyed, and if you did, feel free to leave a kudos or comment. Thanks again for reading, I hope you have a wonderful day.<33


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